Montana Governor Sets Off Fight with Call to Bring Guard Home

To my understanding the National Guard are under the jurisdiction of the individual States they are deployed in, and specificly relegated to domestic affairs. Montanna has put in a recall of it's National Guard from iraq to assist in what is likely to be a dangerous wildfire season there. The right wingers are calling this a protest of the war. Perhaps it is, but right wingers be damned, the national guard isn't supposed to be over there in the first place, and with all the beefing up of our national security (supposedly) then why are they giving this guy flack about bringing his men to the home front?

Montana call for Iraq troop return sparks debate
12 Mar 2005 00:59:16 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Laura Zuckerman

SULA, Mont., March 11 (Reuters) - Montana's Democratic governor has touched off a political fight with state Republicans after calling for the return of National Guard troops serving in Iraq to help out during what many fear will be a record-setting wildfire season.

Newly elected Gov. Brian Schweitzer infuriated Republican lawmakers -- the minority party in state government for the first time in more than a decade -- who see his request as a back-door way to criticize the Bush administration over Iraq.

"He's figured out how to use the wildfire season to protest the Iraq war," said Senate Minority Leader Bob Keenan said on Tuesday. "It's an anti-war statement and condemnation of Bush's actions."

The governor and his supporters deny those charges in a growing political battle that comes as weather experts say a seven-year drought and a severely reduced snowpack could lead to a devastating summer of wildfires.

They also worry that limited resources stretched thinner by National Guardsmen serving overseas could make it difficult to combat the kind of massive blazes that engulfed the state in 2000 when some 2,400 wildfires torched nearly 950,000 acres of mostly public land.

Are we so enthralled with foriegn war making that we would risk our own domestic policy? What kind of federalist message are we sending individual governers here? Do they have no jurisdiction now over the National Guard?

The President can call forth the National Guard (militia) into service of the United States at any time, in accordance with the laws provided by Congress. The governor has no power to stop that.

Edit: This is in the U.S. Constitution

[edit on 3/15/2005 by djohnsto77]

It does seem more like a political statement rather than a real need.

I can understand the citizen's fear of the wildfire season (I lived in the Colorado mountains for years), but I don't believe the country would just stand by while Montana just burnt to the ground.

The country has always united when disasters strike, and when individual states don't have the manpower to get the job done. Look at California with the flooding and landslides recently - there were disaster/rescue teams from all over the USA called in to assist. The same is true of Colorado in past years. Hot-shots from many western states came by the bus load to help fight the fires.

Well I know that this year will be one of the most active fire seasons on record. Heavy growth due to lots of rain, combined with an early spring and a hot dry summer will light up half the country.

If the national guard is needed, they should be returned. Keeping Americans from losing their homes or burning to death far outweighs the benefit of protecting oil pipelines and demolishing mosques in the seat of civilization.

I don't think they will be returned, in fact I'm almost sure of it. We're just going to have to be content to look out for ourselves, since our government is more concerned about their overseas ventures at the moment.